


A Very Special Birthday, Just Not Mine

by Sandalaris



Series: the white rabbit's pocketwatch [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crazy Belle, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 02:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10687815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandalaris/pseuds/Sandalaris
Summary: Belle makes a new friend, and Rumpelstiltskin makes his return.AU where Belle escapes the hospital just days before Emma's arrival





	A Very Special Birthday, Just Not Mine

She sits in the back of the diner. While it's dark and all the lights are out. It's when the immodest woman with the sad eyes found her. Snuck her in. Past the old woman Ruby had yelled at, and under the nose of the transparent man she'd been sent to follow. 

Improper name for improper things. All cardboard cutouts made of falsehoods and shadows. 

"Can I get you anything else, honey? I think I have some leftover pie from this evening." 

She looks up, sees Ruby smiling at her. Lips painted red as blood until she must look away because it hurts. Leaving echoes of copper on tongue. 

Nice girl with sad eyes. Didn't even ask her name. Couldn't tell her if she did. 

She looks down at her plate, sees crumbs and wonders where it all went. She doesn't feel full. Forgotten what it feels like, but knows it isn't this.

"No, thank you." 

She has trousers now, and slippers. Simple things the dealmaker gave her, after coming back. Secondhand and all muted and soft and too big. Along with a promise to come by the next night. She owes him, for clothes and food. And more, but she can't remember that either. She'll pay him back in listening. Relaying stories the others tell each other behind their silly names and false actions. That's the deal. 

Not supposed to serve two masters. _He'll be angry._ She blinks, head shaking to rid the thought. 

"You alright there?"

She's warm and she's eaten and the shakes have finally passed during her second night in the woods. All should be well.

 _No._ "I'm fine, thank you."

She must meet the dealmaker before bed. Relay her findings. 

Ruby takes the plate, fake thing all floppy and useless, tossing it in the trash. It's a secret, this thing she's doing. Stopping to eat, but she has time. Always time, which is still sluggish tugging away in it's wheel. 

"I have to go," she says suddenly, looking up at Ruby whose sitting down across from her. 

"Oh," the woman says. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." She looks sad for just a moment, lonely in a way that makes her want to reach out and touch. She doesn't. And Ruby is smiling a moment later, big and wide with her too red lips that brings an ache behind her ribs. "Gotta date. And it's rent day, so the old scrooge will be by." 

She nods, because it seems polite. Standing up and wrapping her sweater tighter. 

"Listen," Ruby stays, stopping her with an outstretched hand. "If you're in some kind of trouble..." She trails off, giving her another sad smile. Broken girl, like her. _She's getting better._ "Come by tomorrow night. I'll leave you a hamburger out." 

She nods and smiles, cheeks hurting with the effort even as she keeps it soft and sweet. Her throat hurts, burns. Doesn't trust herself to speak. Cowardly, to turn away, heading back out where it's dark and safe.

"See you around." It's a goodbye from the woman at the diner. And a promise. One she can't read or see but can feel. In her chest and behind her heart. 

The air is cool as she steps down onto the alley. Autumn crispness filling her lungs. 

Somewhere above the clock chimes the hour, time catching up on it's wheel. Laughter catches in her throat, anticipation in her veins as something snaps to place in the air around her. 

She spins, arms outspread and head tilted back. Can almost feel time move with her, dancing along her skin and raising gooseflesh in it's wake. The dealmaker wants her to tell him what the glass-man did today, will reward her in food and clothing. But this! Oh, this is much more important. This is spinning and light and _hope._

Can't bottle hope. Not like love or fear. No shiny glowing bottle on a dusty shelf she's not allowed to touch. 

She will tell the dealmaker about the spying glass and then she'll tell him about hope. 

She can almost remember what it tastes like. 

\- 

He's watching her. Staring. Has since he came rushing back, stopping suddenly in front of her with a choked word. Was here sooner than she'd expected. Sooner than he said. Shame on him for changing the rules. 

"Where have you been?" he asks, his voice strained and cracking. Desperate. Right, good, and so wrong. He's only desperate when... when... she can't remember. Never seen it before, she reminds herself. 

"Here," she answers. It's polite. She fights the urge to curtsy. She hasn't the skirts. Left them behind. 

He still hasn't looked away. He frowns though. Takes a step closer. Wrong answer. She racks her mind, looking for a better one. Can't tell him what she found, not yet. He hasn't asked. 

"Before-" he begins, cutting her off and then choking on the words a moment before continuing, "you found me." 

Her eyes widen and she scrambles back. Fear tastes like metal. Metal and acid and the bitterness of pills. She needs to get better. Can't go back. Don't see, don't speak, they'll use it to tie her down. Can't move, can't breath. Something up her nose and down her throat. Opposite ways, colliding. 

_She's refusing to eat again._

_You want to get better, don't you?_

_The doctors gave the order. It's for your own good._

"You don't have to, sweetheart. You won't have to," he's saying. Softly, soothing. One hand reaching for her, palm up. Like she's a frightened kitten he must coax out from beneath the couch. Stubborn, silly thing. All fluff and useless hissing. 

"You're safe here." His tone turns suddenly fierce, an angry growl. "They aren't taking you." He steps close enough to touch. 

She can now hear her own mutters, frantic words spoken under the heavy beat of her heart, but they taper off and she doesn't know which thought she was speaking. There's so many, all tangled together and tripping her up. That's not new. Only magnified. 

His fingers curl bruise-tight around her upper arm. His breath caresses the top of her head. Warm and strong. An anchor in the storm. A shackle against the wall. 

_He's shaking her and yelling and the stone floor of her cell hurts her knees where he tosses her inside._

She clenches her trembling fist. Don't hit, don't fight. It'll only make it worse. Only bring needles and men and cold. Muted pain and terrible fog. 

"I'm getting better," she says, trying to make him understand. It won't work. He's not broken. Steady and strong, gold is, but soft and malleable in its purest form. You have to taint it to give it strength. Add things that don't belong. Until it's all burnished yellow and cold to the touch. Glitters and shimmer that dance upon the skin and in the eye. 

"Not there yet." The words escape past her lips, reaching out to him and she wants to snatch them back before he gathers them all to himself. Her pieces are jagged, picture doesn't make sense, but he's such a clever man. He'll see, and then he'll know and send her away ( _again_.) 

"It's," she begins, and he watches her and waits. Every so patient. Waiting for her. She licks her chapped lips, eyes snagged on him and the almost he represents. She chases the similarities, the differences, tries to catalogue and name them, but they escape her gaze. He's all wrong now. All pink and dull like everyone else. 

"The world's gone mad." No, not right. She. She's gone mad. 

"It's not it's fault," she continues with earnest. Follow the string, spinning around it's wheel. Spun too much and forgot. _Tick tock._

"It didn't mean too. The-" The words stick in her throat, getting eaten and chewed up. Twisted and turned in flashes of red and black and white. 

She fights back tears, suddenly unsure. It was all so clear a moment ago, and now... now it sounds like the ramblings of a mad woman. 

"I'm sorry," she whispers, body sagging as she shuts her eyes tight, because the man in front of her has been nothing but generous and she can't stand to see his face. Not when it, he, looks all wrong to her treacherous eyes. 

"No," he says softly, hand having long gone gentle in a way he only is deep underneath. "Don't apologize, sweetheart. You didn't- I lost my temper." 

_No._ But she opens her eyes to look at him. Confusing words, tossing her back into her sparse memories in a futile search for things not there. Not real and she shouldn't dwell on fanciful things. But it hurts, a pleasant ache in her heart that brings tears to her eyes and confusion to her mind. 

_No._

She has to get better. 

"You wouldn't be like this if I hadn't lost my damn temper. I would have included you. You wouldn't-" His face crumples, a sob catching in his throat and he pulls her closer until she's wrapped in his arms, his body a line of warmth along her front. 

She's making absent-minded shushing noises, one hand coming up to run through his hair in small movements. She lost a step, her eyes still burning with repressed tears while soothed by another's nearness. How long has it been since someone touched her like this? 

Then he's before her, no longer pressed tight, blinking wet eyes at her and his hands back on her arms, sliding downward until one catches on her wrist. His fingers snag on her plastic shackle, the one with the false name printed on it that never comes off. He frowns, dropping his gaze down to look at it like he'd forgotten it was there. He raises it up to his eye level, her wrist hanging limply. 

He studies it, everything falling away until he's cold and gray. 

_Walls of stone and flickering torches._

"It used to be on my ankle," she says. He looks at her, calculating and oh so clever. "It was metal then," she should stop, not say the things that cannot be explained away by an odd girl with funny eccentricities. Falsehoods dredged up by her mad mind to trip over her tongue. "Connected to the wall." 

"I never..." he whispers before he's fingers tighten until they are painful around her wrist. "Regina." 

She flinches and doesn't know why.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how much Belle knew about Emma's destiny as the savior before she was taken, but I like to think it wasn't much.


End file.
